Once a football commentator who drew a huge following in China as he rooted out corruption in the sport, Li Chengpeng is now one of the government's fiercest critics - and lives in fear for his own safety.

I come from a long line of Punjabi women who take great pride in upholding their core values. You could say we are opinionated. This is prevalent in the DNA of my mother, my grandmother, my great aunts and myself. So it's no surprise that it's one of my daughter Ilya's most obvious traits.

'At the age of nine, I slept next to a coffin that Father had made for Grandma's 73rd birthday. He forbade us from calling it a 'coffin' and insisted that we refer to it as 'shou mu', which means something like longevity wood.'